Retroactive payments are a complicated issue. The veteran may have had a claim pending or on appeal for years, but the VA may have determined, based on the medical records, that the disability only existed or only existed to a compensable level, for the last three months. If that is the case, then that is the effective date no matter how long the claim had been pending. For example, if a veteran files for Diabetes, but the claim is denied because the examiner says his blood sugar levels don't meet the criteria for a diagnosis of diabetes, he will be denied. If then, the vet appeals the decision and somewhere along the line, the medical records show that the levels do now meet the criteria for diabetes, they will only grant the award back to the date that the criteria was met.

The British, Russians, Australians, French, etc fought with us in WWII as our allies, let's just give everybody benefits. Let's bring all the Iraqi and Afghan Army soldiers here and sign them up for the VA hospital. Why the heck not? AMERICAN veterans die every day without ever getting any VA benefits, but Philipinos who fought in WWII are all entitled to a $15,000.00 payment now. Weren't they fighting for the liberation of their own dang country? Let's use this apparently endless supply of taxpayer money to help OUR soldiers.

I used to function as a VA federal fiduciary under our state's Commissioner of Veterans Affairs. This article is "conspiracy theory" nonsense. The VA's only purpose for the fiduciary program is to protect the veteran's assets. Many times, the veteran's family members are the biggest threat to those assets, sometimes it's the veteran themselves. Of course, no one wants someone else to tell them what to do with their money, especially those that are incompetent. I had many crack addicted, schizophrenics that would have burned through every dime of a 100% compensation check on the first day of the month if allowed to do so and would have been homeless. Someone can't be adjudicated by the VA as incompetent without a medical professional saying that they are incompetent. Social Security uses the same process for their Representative Payee program. You could not pay me enough to be a Federal Fiduciary privately, 5% of a single 100% service-connected veteran's income is $133.65 per month. Managing one of these guys could provide a full time job to a normal person.